Memento
by wweismann
Summary: I still remember the last time I was happy. It was December. [dramione] [complete] [one-shot]


I still remember the last time I was happy.

It was December. Winter is – not many people know that – my favorite season. There is something about the snow falling that has always made me inexplicably happy, the white blanket coveting the city causing chaos and disrupting the traffic. Winter is constantly perceived as the end, as the conclusion of a cycle that has no mercy and destroy everything it touches, the imminent defeat of everything that fought to live during the year. However, people often forget that this season is the break we need.

In order to transforms yourself, you also need to destroy yourself.

It was the day of the solstice, I remember clearly. The Christmas lights were shining all over the city, the decoration in a variety of shades of gold and red made me laugh of your annoyed facial expression – "Damn you, Griffyndors!", I heard you say more than once when you thought I was not listening – while your hand held mine, your refusal in wearing gloves making you taking both into your pocket while telling me that "mine has more room" when I seemed surprised. Cars were honking, snow was falling on your black coat and I was smiling, sure that this Winter fantasy only made my affection to these short cloudy often rainy days grow stronger.

It was not London. Here we could be ourselves even if just for a while. England seemed to be thousands of miles away instead of only two and a half hours by place. You squeezed my hand when I got lost in my thoughts and brought me back to reality. Back to you. For the first time in my life, my reality was better than my dreams, than the tales told in the books that I have read.

We were walking on that huge avenue and despite the clutter of cars, buses and people, that moment it was just you and me in a place where we could not understand a single word of what other people said. We went to the park: you were shivering because you chose a pretty coat instead of a warm one – you would never pick comfort over style, I knew, but I never thought that the Slytherin Prince would shiver when it was only minus one. I took of my scarf – green, it made you smirk earlier when we met in the hotel entrance – and I put it around your neck, you taking advantage of the moment to steal a kiss before we got back to watch people passing by for a few minutes that quickly turned into an hour and a half and a warming up spell to make us cozy when you finally gave up doing everything "the muggle way".

Three thirty in the afternoon and the sun was already setting when you decided it was the best moment for us to walk around the city center, the lights of the buildings turned on and the dark sky in contrast with the white ground. The snow stopped falling some time ago and we could clearly see the footprints of tourists and locals mixed. You decided to stop by a café. We laughed, we were happy.

Later that night you told me you had to go.

"Sure, when are you coming back?" I saw myself asking, knowing which kind of life he had and how work took a large portion of his time just like… Well, just as my work did to me. That was the moment when you took my hand, took a deep breath and looked me in the eyes.

"I don't know if I'll come back"

And you went away. From the solstice I was left behind not with the promise of longer days and that soon everything will be brought back to life, but with the idea that everything that once existed was destroyed. I understood your reasons – you explained piece by piece why you needed to leave and if I were in your position, I would have done the same. But it is not because I understand that it does not hurt, that it does not kills me inside. It took me two hours and a half in that plane to go back home, plus almost other two in the crowded metro in which nothing could make me feel anything, either good or bad. I became numb, I could not make myself care about anything.

I got home and I sat in the couch. Minutes became hours, hours turned into days and days became weeks until I was forced to move on. I was not recovered – I had not went through the process all that happened, I was not ok – but I needed to move on. I drowned myself into my work leaving no room for my personal life: you cannot have miserable thoughts if you do not have time to think. At night, I had silence and silence is the scariest sound because it drives you to places you do not want to go.

It is not easy to go through the grief process for a relationship that no one never knew it existed. There is no support because before you hide it from your friends and know your stupid pride does not allow you to give in now and ask for help. When they ask why I seem so pale and why the dark circles under my eyes are getting bigger and darker, I just mention how much work I have lately and start talking about the most boring case I have in hope they will not let me go on and just change the subject – and they always do. It is not their fault, I am the one who is just not ready for it.

Months went by and I there is no time to heal. There is no time because I did not give myself the right to have it. Because the only way I can cope with it is putting everything in a box and compartmentalizing, throwing this box in a hidden corner of my mind. What happened after that is that after some time I was so afraid to open that box that I just accepted that what I was doing was normal, that how I was feeling was normal. After a while, one can get used to this torpid sensation that cannot realize that this is not right.

Years come and go. My tasks change, my job changes, my position changes, but nothing can cause me the feeling you do – _did._ I still avoid parts of the city that remind me of you. I had to find a new café and – worse! – a new bookstore because I was getting tired of convincing myself that not every sign of blond hair was yours, avoiding the butterflies in my stomach and all the expectations even when I saw a copper blond shade, so different from your platinum blond.

I tried to move on alone but I could not do it.

But it is ok. Some things are not meant to be. Some moments shall remain forever in your memory, some mementos constantly coming back to you in some sort of eternal torture to remind you how you lost something you hold so dearly, to punish you for the mistakes you are not even sure which were made, but ultimately just making you suffer. It Is your Via Crucis and after a while is just too tiresome to fight back so you just keep going on, the weight of your cross in your back while you try not to look back, try not to understand why are you being punished.

It has been almost a decade. Nine years three hundred sixty three days, to be precise. I already have a few strands of white hair and have gave up fighting against the dark circles a long time ago. I have managed to give almost sincere smiles just like that one you can see on the cover of The Daily Prophet showing the Potter wedding or when my godson was born. And yesterday the Minister announced that I had become the new Deputy Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

I know I should be happy. I came further than anyone could have imagined years ago. I survived to so many things, I have been through so much to be here now. I have gone the extra mile, worked hard and made it. The Minister already agreed that together we will end those old laws giving privileges to pure-bloods but even though I have all this paper work where I can get lost in and forget about my feelings in the kitchen table, I am sitting next to the window holding a tea that has turned cold a long time ago and watching the late first snow of the year falling. This time I am in London.

This time I do not exchange silly smiles nor hear angry drivers honking: the street is empty, the neighbors' lights are off, the white blanket untouched. There are no red and gold decoration, just a few lights blinking. I was not observing people in a park but just a road in which nobody dared to be since it started snowing. There is no sign of a black coat and platinum blond hair. There is no vestige of happiness, just my memories, so far away that I am starting to wonder if they were not just a work of my imagination – maybe this way it would be better. Maybe if I manage to convince myself that this is the truth I can bring me back to who I once were or as close to it as possible. Maybe if only I convince myself that I did not got a taste of heaven before falling straight into the flames of hell.

Maybe…

I leave my spot at the window forgetting my tea once for all, throwing myself in the couch in front of a television that is showing a rerun of a Christmas movie that I was not paying attention to. And for the first time I allowed myself to see how I was broken, how I was in tatters. And that was when the first tear came. And the second. And the third. And day turned into night in some moment in this process. And eventually my tears dried. That was when I stood up and went to the toilet, washing my face and staring back to those opaque eyes and wild hair that escaped from what once was a perfectly done bun.

I came back to the living room when someone knocked the door.

The coat was black and it had snow in the shoulders, the hands were red burnt by the cold weather that also made them shake while holding a bouquet. Tea roses were surrounding a center of red and white roses, bringing a clear message: he would never forget me. We were inseparable.

Without moving, I looked into his eyes.

"Did you come back?"

"I did"

I remember the last time I was happy.

It was five minutes ago when he held me tight and I was sure that everything was exactly how it was supposed to be.

.

.

.

_Thanks to Céu for convincing me to write something, Isa for reading before being published and that particular hour and a half that I was on work and Windows decided to update._

_English is not my mother language so I apologize for any mistakes._

_Feel free to leave a review _


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